A Little Too Much

If news-reading were a team sport, you would've found me and my family serving sandwiches.

It's not that we found corrupting our mornings with appalling information particularly revolting and, hence, distanced ourselves from the newspaper. Come to think of it, that is why we don't read the newspaper. You must understand it has been so long since I last disturbed the creases of a neatly folded agent of misinformation that I forgot why Wintervale Daily does not find its way to our house anymore. But forget about that. What I came to tell you is, yesterday, as I was engaged in perfunctory stretching on my front lawn, I saw Mr. Johnson—the man who fixed your television the other day?—reading the paper, beaming like he'd won the lottery. I took the 'paper from him and read the thing at once. 

So engrossed was I in reading it that I did not notice a dog tinkle on my trousers, twice. I'm sure you must have shared my perplexity. What's that? You did not read it? Oh, don't worry. I have the thing memorized. They omitted a few important details but, lucky for you, my good friend constable Hopkins filled me in on those. So sit back and allow me to narrate the thing to you.

Mickey Hargreaves was supposed to be sent to prison on Tuesday, March 5th. He had stolen some thirty thousand dollars from a wine shop. I, too, thought that was a printing mistake, but thirty thousand is what the shop owner, Mr. Middleton, had at his shop, and Mickey had purloined all of it. (Mr. Middleton had some difficulty explaining the source of the money but that's a different story, not half as entertaining as Mickey's.) At his court hearing, Mickey was asked how he knew Mr. Middleton would have such a large sum of money to which he replied that he just got lucky. The attorney apparently said, "Whether you knew he had the money or not, you're going to jail, Mr. Hargreaves. Why don't you tell us the truth?" Mickey stood firm on his statement. As he was being sentenced to two months of imprisonment, the judge noticed Mickey trying to control his laughter. "Does anything about the situation seem amusing to you, Mr. Hargreaves?" he asked. "Pardon me, I have this condition where laughter inadvertently escapes my lips when I find myself in a trying situation," Mickey said. The court was adjourned, and Mickey was escorted to the police van.

I know you're thinking they must have taken him to Thomson Whittaker Wandsworth Correction Center, but you might recall that last year, the inmates from Thomson Whittaker Wandsworth Correction Center were shifted to Kessington Correction Center because Thomson Whittaker Wandsworth Correction Center had been damaged beyond repair. So, instead of ten minutes, the ride from the court to the correction center was going to take three hours, give or take. Hopkins was accompanying Mickey in the back of the van.

Halfway through the ride, as they entered Beckinsdale, Mickey saw something outside the window and asked the driver to stop, but the driver didn't do so, naturally. A moment later, a high-pitched shrill, 'like the whistle of a pressure cooker professionally trained in classical singing' filled the van, and the driver swerved the van to the left, killing the engine. He asked Mickey what he did that for, and Mickey said, "Sorry, but I had to. Look over there," pointing at Master Randall Schuman's public library.

"What about it?" Hopkins asked.

"Hold on," Mickey said and started pulling something out from under his shirt. Hopkins quickly grabbed his hands and said, "You can't take your life, not on my watch." Mickey was quiet for a few seconds before he cachinnated like a lunatic. "It's not a gun, constable. If you do not trust me, feel free to take it out yourself." Hopkins saw the driver shaking his head from side to side, and he let go of Mickey's hands. Mickey lifted his shirt again, with his cuffed hands, as the driver and Hopkins looked on.

"Here. Would you be so kind as to return this book to the library?"

Hopkins looked at the driver, the driver looked at Mickey, while Mickey kept staring at Hopkins with 'a gaze that commanded a standing ovation from Chrysippus'.

"What?"

"I had borrowed this book from the library. My house is right over there," Mickey said, pointing at a building opposite the library. "I had to move to Wintervale because my aunt Vanessa summoned me to tutor my cousins in the art of Bonsai. Last week, as I was emptying my suitcase, this book fell on my feet and, heavens above, I saw that the book was overdue! Imagine my plight, constable, when aunt Vanessa informed me that the general public was forbidden from leaving or entering Beckinsdale because the President had just arrived there.

"I spent a whole day thinking what I could do, how I could get the book back to the library. I'm a devout man, constable, and have faith in the Lord, for I've had several of my prayers answered, although belatedly on most occasions. But the enormity of my trouble must have caused Him to escalate the matters because the very next day, I found a way to enter Beckinsdale.

"Freddie Johnson, aunt Vanessa's neighbor, was being taken to Kessington Correction Center for stealing a golden toenail that belonged to Ms. Helmsworth's cat. I thought they could drop me off at the library on their way to the correction center, so I politely asked one of the constables if I could join them. He clasped my shoulder and said, 'A ride to the prison is earned, not given,' or something to that effect. I asked a few of my friends how I should go about earning a ride to the prison, and one of them suggested 'dispossessing Middleton of his riches.'(He could not have said 'rob Middleton' for walls have ears, constable.) I set out, in broad daylight, to steal Middleton's money. I found a lot more of it than I expected to. I grabbed a handful of notes and was about to leave when a thought crossed my mind: What if they charge me with petty theft and never take me to the prison? I turned back and took all the money I could lay my hands on. It was unbearable, but I knew I had to do it. I might be a lot of things, but a defaulter is not one of them."

"What?"

"I might be a lot of things, but—"

"No, stop! I heard that. Did you really steal thirty thousand from Middleton so you could return a book you had borrowed?"

"Yes. I can never imagine myself causing any kind of loss, however insignificant, to Master Randall Schuman's library."

"Why?"

"It might be just a library to you, sir,"— he turned back to face the driver—"and to you too, I presume. But to me, it's a place that reminds me why life, despite all the hardships it makes one endure, is not such an infernal thing after all. It's the place that has bestowed upon me something I can never be grateful enough for: my Melody."

"Your wife?"

"My former divorce attorney and my fiancé. My wife, Eleanor, and I were going through a rough patch in our marriage. To be honest, rough patch doesn't do justice to what we were going through. I'd rather call it a—a—what's the phrase? More like a—"

"How about we go with a Sunday in purgatory for now?"

"Could not have said it better myself, constable. Yes, that's what we were going through. One day, I had had enough, and I stormed off to the library—a place I often go for peace of mind and sometimes for reading a book. As I was sitting in the library, reading 'The Joys of Bachelorhood', a figure with straws for legs and a pile of books for torso walked in through a room in front of me. As the pile of books descended on the table, my eyes fell upon a face I can only describe as the dewy petal of a sun-kissed daisy.

"She smiled at me. Had it not been for the meditation class I had been to that morning—where I learned the art of being present in the moment—, I would have forgotten to return the smile because, constable, by the time it reached me, the ripple that her smile had caused in the air around her had taken the form of two gentle hands that seemed to be caressing my cheeks.

"I am one hundred percent sure that when I picked up 'The Joys of Bachelorhood,' it had a monochrome cover. As I got up to leave, however, the dull monochrome had been substituted by a dazzling ensemble of the most luminous of colors.

"This game of volleying smiles back and forth went on for quite some time when one day, she expressed interest in sitting beside me. She noticed 'The Joys of Bachelorhood' in my hands and asked if I was married. I believe she must have sensed my discomfort at trying to answer that, for she put her soft hand over mine and assured me that she could help me get rid of my troubles. If you ever find yourself, constable, trying to figure out the probability of getting kicked by a cow and landing in the back of a truck and being ferried to another country—"

"I do not think I will find myself doing that."

"Yes, yes. But, say you do, then please divide that number by ten, and you'll get the probability of a man in a troubled marriage finding out that the woman he has started to form a relationship with is a divorce attorney. When Melody told me she was a divorce attorney, it felt as if a thousand lilies were being poured on my head—not all at once, of course. She got me divorced from Eleanor in the most peaceable manner one can hope to get divorced. We began meeting at the library every day. I did not find any reason not to marry her and asked her if she would marry me. She said yes, and I began to prepare for the wedding. That's when I was summoned by my aunt and had to move to Wintervale. Had it not been for that, I would now be referring to Melody as my missus."

Hopkins, patiently listening to Mickey's soliloquy, managed to conceal his befuddlement. "I understand why the library holds a special place in your heart, Mr. Hargreaves. However, it still seems a little too much to me to go to such an extreme to merely return a book."

Mickey squinted his eyes and, an instant later, a childlike smile appeared on his face.

"Pardon me, constable. I have this terrible habit of skipping important details every time I find myself narrating a tale I am too attached to. Melody's full name, if you must know, is Melody Randall Schuman; she's Master Randall Schuman's daughter. When Melody was preparing me to win Master Randall's favor, the first thing she told me was that he would forgive me if I were a felon, pardon me if I were a heretic. But if I were to ever fail to return a book I had borrowed from his library, he would ignore me for the rest of his life, like a man ignores fields marked optional on a survey form. How then, constable, could I not have done anything I could to make sure the book was back at its permanent residence?"

All Hopkins could do was nod his head in disbelief and bask in the heroism emanating from Mickey's words.

"You might not be a defaulter, Mr. Hargreaves, but you really are a lot of things." Hopkins looked down at his feet. "But, as much as I would like to, I cannot prevent you from being sent to prison."

Mickey placed his hands on Hopkins' lap. "It is alright, constable. If by spending a few days in prison I'm guaranteed a place for life in Master Randall's heart, then I would consider that to be the deal of the century."

Hopkins denies it, but if you ask me, he must've gotten a little teary-eyed at that. As for Mickey, he was indeed taken to the prison, but he had to spend only three days there. How? Well, when Master Randall found about the whole affair, he bailed Mickey out, and Middleton dropped the charges when he got to know about Master Randall's involvement in the case. As a token of appreciation for his devotion toward the library, Mickey was granted a free lifetime membership. When Master Randall Schuman found out from his daughter, Melody, that Mickey was the man she intended to get married to, he is said to have exploded with jubilation. He did not care that Mickey had been convicted of robbery for, just as Melody had said, he did forgive felons and was happy to see Melody get married to Mickey.

I'm not saying you will, but let's say you do find yourself trying to figure out the probability of such an episode ever taking place in the future, I'm quite confident that it will come out to be a lot less than the probability of getting kicked by a cow, landing in the back of a truck and being ferried to another country.